Politician suspended for claiming gay marriage caused England to be 'afflicted by storms and floods'

A British politician from the United Kingdom Independent Party has been suspended after he blamed the bad weather that has been sweeping across Britain on the legalization of gay marriage and then said that being gay is a "spiritual disease" that can be healed.

UKIP councilor David Silvester wrote a letter to his local paper saying: "The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war."

He then went on to blame British Prime Minister David Cameron for the problems with the weather.

"I wrote to David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same-sex marriage bill,” Silvester said. "It is his fault that large swathes of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods."

After the UKIP initially defended Silvester’s right to voice his opinion, the party opted to suspend him after he continued to discuss the topic even though he had been asked not to.

Silvester told the BBC on Sunday that being gay was a "spiritual disease" that could be healed and that gay marriage was the latest law that would anger God, similar to abortion.

"I believe as a Christian I should love gay people and indeed, I do,” Silvester said. "My prayer for them is they will be healed. It is nonsense to say it is homophobic. If you love a person enough to want them to be healed and to have a proper family, that is hardly homophobic. It is a spiritual disease.”

[BBC] [The Guardian]